The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach

I discovered this book during my MA program a few years back. At the time, I'd not seen anything quite like it, aside from Lew Turco's Book of Forms, a book that I enjoyed. But since I'm not a primarily formalist poet, I found Turco's book somewhat wanting. Robin Behn and Chase Twichell's *The Practice of Poetry* provided a needed alternative. It's filled with great generative poetry writing exercises, each accompanied by a short discussion written by the poet/professor who contributed the piece. These introductions are at least as valuable as the assignments themselves: reading them, one sees a poet's mind in action, something very hard to describe or capture. The most useful of these assignments gets you writing very quickly. David St. John's contribution, a dramatic monologue, for example, urges writers to find a famous person from history or literature and write from that person's perspective. I'll never forget a shy young student writing a monologue in Sherlock Holmes' voice in my workshop. Other assignments do come off as flaky, and yet the contributors admit as such. One exercise leads poets through a chanting exercise that seems so odd that I'd fear for my job if I tried it in class. Even in a less formal workshop, I'd be reticent about chanting. Of course, if chanting is something you enjoy . . . The book concludes with two or three essays about revision that every poet needs to read. Beginning poets especially can benefit the wisdom herein. Perhaps the greatest strength of this book is it variety. The book includes assignments from all ends of the aesthetic spectrum--from Jackson Mac Low to Dana Gioia. So, whether you're a New Formalist, a Neo-Surrealist, or a L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E disciple, this book will prove indispensable to your library.

I taught from this book and continue to use it year after year in my own writing.It's indispensable!

As a poet and teacher of poetry for decades, I periodically experiment with different, newer texts for my poetry workshops (graduate and undergraduate) at Towson University. But nothing comes close to this book. It's wonderful--both for class use and for jumpstarting myself out of one plateau onto the next.

They tunnel into the imagination, from dark places to inner and outer journeys. They include exercises for several poetic forms I hadn't discovered. The group exercises, with a little finagling, can be used for lone desperado writers. I'm definitely hooked.